Monday, August 31, 2015

Issue 12 of & Magazine should be out very soon, and so here I will display a few filler pieces that should grace the pages of that fine periodical.

These first few will accompany one of the many articles relating to Inns and Taverns in this issue.

A mug and loaf of hard bread.

Copyright Del Teigeler 2015.

I return to the technique of wood graining with the board, and gave the cup/mug a simple crown motif, as well as a metallic shine. For the handle I wrapped it in leather for a better grip, one doesn't want to spill the mug you know.

Tossed in a quick fork for some more...er...flavor, and the loaf of hard bread with one end broken off completes the illo.

Cutting Board and cleaver.

Copyright Del Teigeler 2015.

Who doesn't like carrots! This illo is a simple fill piece the cleaver being the prominent subject matter with its steel shine and sharp edge. The carrot being secondary I tried to get the feel of the pieces in various configuration to show their 3-D-ness.

The module concerns a halfling artifact stolen by a clan of Frost Giant Women.

Very interesting and easily adapted to any favorite gaming system.

Here is the cover image.

Copyright RC Pinnell 2015. Copyright Del Teigeler 2015.

and the original.

Copyright Del Teigeler 2015

I wanted to capture a scene in the module that brought the heroes of the story within close proximity to the Giantesses as they hacked away the only bridge between the halfling village and the mountains that they were escaping to.

I think I could have made the giantesses a bit more large, but I still think it conveys that they are not human sized. The warrior figure shows up in the next two images as well.

Copyright Del Teigeler 2015

For this illustration I wanted to pit our hero against the giantess. I could have done a bit better job on the background, and some of the anatomy was a bit off, but the image works.

Here is the final interior image.

Copyright Del Teigeler 2015

I love the contrast of this piece. The bright shining relic and the deep black background. A bit of cave interior, with our hero and the vanquished Frost Giant Maiden at his feet.

This was fun to work on, it took me longer than I had hoped to get around to working on it, but I think the cover and the relic piece were worth the wait. Juries still out on the frost giantess image.

Thanks goes out to RC Pinnell (Thorkhammer) for asking me to be a part of this project, and for being extremely patient.

Monday, August 17, 2015

I am always trying to improve my work, both for my professional and personal improvement. Believe it or not I have not done a lot of life study art in the past. A few times in college, and that is about it. While perusing the interwebs I found several suppliers of life art videos on youtube.com.

The one I found the most helpful was one called Croquis Cafe. They give you timed images of models that you can readily choose from and place them in a variety of interesting positions so that artists can study them.

They start off with one minute drills, leading to 2 minuted drills and then a five minute drill. None of that really works for me, so I pause the video so that I can concentrate more on figure.

Anyway I thought I would share a handful of them here.

This is what came out when I tried to do a one minute study.

Not very good here. I think I tried too hard to focus on building those shapes before and not concentrating on the outline of the figure.

Next is a bit longer, I think this one took about 2 min.

This one is significantly better, and using the whole 2 minutes was hard to define details, but getting the general feel for the position was key.

I found throughout the study time I allocated that I needed more time for each model than what the video gave me. I took about 3-5 minutes for each of the following. I think overall my speed improved, and I suppose if I continued to do these life studies, my time would improve dramatically.

Here are a few more.

Each of those felt really good to me, and I could see some improvement from the first few.

Here my techniques have improved drastically I think. The overall form and figure are smoothing out, and the line work is much more strong.

I see marked improvement in building the figures here. The contours are well defined with few lines, shading and structure are better as well. These took about 4 min each to complete.

This one was the epitome of my life study experience during this session. I feel like I was able to give the proportion, concept, shading and characterization of the figure its deserved attention. I think I spent like 10 minutes on this one.

Throughout all of these I erased very little, and just let the pencil glide across the paper. These are simple to do, and take very little time. I suggest anyone who is interested in drawing realistically to do some life studies, even if you do not time yourself. And with the resources listed above, you do not even have to leave the comfort of your own home, travel to a college or be placed in a room with fifteen to twenty other "artists" and a model.

One of these days i would like to do a true life study with a real model, but time and money are a huge factor.

Issue 6 is getting close. Here is a sample of the layout with Steve Kenson's article and art work by Del Teigeler. We pretty much just have the cover, with original art work by Jim Holloway, and the game design to put in place!

Thursday, August 6, 2015

I listen religiously to several podcasts while I am commuting to and from my day job, and while at the drawing board, my favorite by far is the Save or Die Podcast a classic D&D podcast. If you are a fan, and listen too, then you know the name Thorkhammer. +Thork Hammer published the continuation to the giant series of modules on his own several years ago, and in fact those modules are still available in several locations across the net including RPGnow.com.

If you do not know Thorkhammer then you really need to. He is involved in Dragonsfoot.org, as well as other prominent OSR websites. Look him up it will be well worth it.

Several months ago, Thork approached me and wanted to work together on a free downloadable product that he had been working on. It's title Frost Maidens of the Frozen Horn is a module designed for use with B/X D&D but easily usable with any version of the worlds most popular RPG.

The writing is complete, I have read through the adventure, and it is great! I am filling in with the cover work, and several interior illustrations. I am holding the cover back for now, and waiting to show it off until we released the book to the general public.

Still, I want to give all of my blog visitors a snipit, so here is one of the interior illustrations. A frost giantess fighting and armored adventurer.

Copyright Del Teigeler 2015.

I personally think she is going to split him in twain, but will you dare pit your favorite character against these Frozen Maidens?